


Is It A Dog Or A Bear?

by Of_Princes_and_Savages



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: AU, Blanky is Blanky, First Meetings, Fluff, Goodsir is the best sir, Silna loves her dog, other characters get a mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 21:23:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14756555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Of_Princes_and_Savages/pseuds/Of_Princes_and_Savages
Summary: A large...something, is bounding towards Harry Goodsir and a number of others trying to take a shortcut through the park In the middle of a storm. A very large something.





	Is It A Dog Or A Bear?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. The finale left me dead inside. :)

He was a hundred-and-heavy pounds, his favorite toy was an actual honest to god car tire he carried around like it weighed nothing, and he ate about three cups of dog food in one sitting, twice a day, every day. And still, she sighed, throwing up the hood of her raincoat and jogging down the street in the great beast's wake, her father's great big dog was afraid of thunder.

It would be one thing if he hid and whimpered and whined about it, really, but no! The dog had to bolt down the path, ripping the leash out her hand so hard it chafed, bounding blindly through the park.

Dad insisted he was a smart animal, but times like this made Silna doubt his claims. Then again, he wasn't here right now, so really, as soon as the gray clouds appeared overhead, she should have gone home, shut Tuunbaq up inside the bedroom with his giant Kong toy and put on the jazz music CD that seemed to calm him down. So trying to finish his walk was a poor decision on her part, damn it.

The wet ground and Tuunbaq's huge paws made it easy to follow him, at least. Silna rubbed her hands together, trying to listen out for any thundering barks or to catch a glimpse of white fur in case he ran off the path or got in trouble...

* * *

Sometimes Harry liked to come to the park. Sometimes he just liked to watch the ducks and geese paddle around on the pond. Sometimes it was pleasant to sit on a bench in the sun and read a book, or a newspaper, and enjoy the day.

And sometimes it was the fastest shortcut home to the apartments across the park, and he was surrounded by at a half-dozen or so other men that lived nearby all scurrying to get home out of the storm.

The ones without umbrellas were making better headway because they didn't have to worry about stabbing someone in the eye. (Though there was a near-fatal accident at the start of the scramble when a short redheaded man popped open his umbrella and very nearly blinded the tall man beside him, and didn't so much as apologize for it.) Graham Gore, Harry's workmate, was making excellent time on his long legs, but he was in a very big hurry because he wasn't even wearing a raincoat for protection against the cold rain like Harry had thought to bring.

Then suddenly he slowed, stopped, and bolted in the opposite direction, very nearly taking them all down with him.

"Run! Run!"

"What? Why-"

"Get out of the way!" another cried, and Harry finally noticed the great white beast racing towards them on huge paws. "It's a goddamn _bear_!"

Harry had never seen a dog so big in his entire life. He wondered for just a paralyzed moment if this size of dog had passed for the Hound of the Baskervilles when he thought better of musing and tried to get his feet to propel him out of the dog's path. Now, if not sooner! He followed in Graham's wake, narrowly avoiding and warning old Mr. Blanky as they passed, as the older man (who never ran, not that anyone had ever seen,) had a prosthetic leg and walked slower than they did.

Mr. Blanky's leg was the subject of much debate in Harry's workplace. Some people thought he lost the leg in combat, but no one knew if he served in the military. Some thought it was an accident, but no one could decide what nature of accident. A car crash? Natural disaster? Bear attack? All anyone knew was that Mr. Blanky was the only man who Francis Crozier, a grumpy old sot on his own, honestly called a friend without counting the unfortunately named James Fitzjames, and that he had the aura of a man who would scare off Death itself if it came to collect him before he was ready.

So in hindsight, it was unsurprising that Thomas Blanky did not run from a dog.

The dog barked-with a sound to match it's size,-and Mr. Blankly tossed aside his umbrella and took a step to the left. Harry thought he might have stumbled or slipped and tried to turn around to help, only to slip and fall in the path where the others had trod and made the earth into churned mud. It was when he was trying to regain his footing that this giant dog bore down upon him and all Harry could think to do was follow some advice he'd read about on bears, curling up in a fetal ball and trying to play dead.

(Was that advice proven to work? Would it work on dogs? The dog was nearly the size of a bear, surely this technique would afford him some protection?)

He felt the ground vibrate when the dog bounded up to him, and gave off a strangled yelp when very hot breath snuffled over his arms where they were curled over his head. But it didn't come any closer than the breath. This was, Harry realized as a woman's voice started calling out, because Mr. Blanky had captured the dog's leash when it passed him by and managed to dig his heels in before ti could run any further.

Suddenly the theory where he'd fought a bear seemed for plausible than ever.

"Tuunbaq!"

* * *

"TUUNBAQ!" Silna yelled, cutting through the downpour. "COME HERE BOY!"

All she could see was the dog up ahead, sniffing at something on the ground while a man held his leash. Good, someone caught him. Silna called for the dog again, and this time the rain softened a bit, so that he turned towards her. Funny how he could hear her across the park, but not when she caught him ten feet away trying to eat a sandwich left on the counter too long.

Between her running on the puddle-laden path, and the man who'd grabbed Tuunbaq's leash letting him go, she met the dog halfway, bracing herself for impact. She ran her hands over the shaggy fur on his head, neck, and back while she grasped for the leash, looking ahead at the men cowering ahead on the path. One of them had either fallen in the mud or been knocked down by Tuunbaq, it was too hard to tell. The man who had the leash was just walking off to the side to pick up an umbrella.

"Thank you!" she called, holding tightly to her dog's leash as she tried to bring him home while there was a brief lull in the thunder. "Sorry about that!"

"No trouble at all!" The man who grabbed the leash said, shaking mud off of his umbrella like these things happened all the time.

It was a close thing getting Tuunbaq back home. In the end he was shut up in her room, with his XXL Kong toy stuffed with peanut butter and the jazz CD playing calmly on the radio. Silna dried off as quick as she could and joined him before he got it into his head to chew up any of her belongings, and the storm passed in another hour or so.

At the end, Tuunbaq leapt up on her bed and flopped down beside her to take a nap. He stayed asleep even when the sun started peeking out from behind the clouds, proving once again what a great big baby he was, considering how badly he must have scared those men in the park today.

She'd just...avoid telling Dad about this. She was supposed to be careful because Tuunbaq was so big, and big dogs were always considered more dangerous than little dogs. If a German Shepherd acted as badly as most Chihuahuas did, they'd demand the shepherd be put down. For some reason some people thought it was "cute" when a little dog acted like a psycho, but it was scary when it weighed more than fifty pounds.

But no harm had been done, Silna sighed, scratching behind his ears. "You're more trouble than you're worth."

Tuunbaq grumbled, rolling so his head flopped onto her lap.

"Alright, you called my bluff."

* * *

Other than his clothes and hair and face having more mud than he'd expected at the end of the workday, Harry was in one piece from the incident in the park.

The next day, some people at work were talking about said incident. Somebody mentioned seeing a young lady and a man who was probably her father walking a very large white dog recently and surmised it just ran off, but some people were wary of the park for the next few days. Harry himself had almost forgotten about it after a solid week of sunlight, and decided to go out and read a book in the park.

He was, therefore, surprised to hear a booming bark.

Looking up, he saw first the huge white dog pulling towards his bench, and secondly, the woman who was reigning the animal in determinedly. She won the battle of wills with a snapped _"Tuunbaq!"_   that had the dog hang back, though it's eyes stayed on Harry and it's tail kept wagging back and forth. The woman looked up at Harry, and it was hard to say which of them was more sheepish, but considering the last time they met Harry had been curled up in the mud playing dead...

"Um, hello." He smiled, standing up. The dog took that as an invitation to go over and sniff at his shoes. "H-hello to you, too..."

"Were you...someone from the other day? In the rain?" The woman said slowly, subtly pulling her dog back to her. "I'm sorry about that, Tuunbaq doesn't really like thunder."

"Oh, no, no, it all turned out alright." Harry cautiously let the animal sniff his hand, then gave it a friendly pat. It had very thick white fur, but he still didn't know what kind of dog it was. Other than _very large_. "I'm Harry, I don't believe we've met."

"Silna. And this big baby is Tuunbaq, and he's sorry for what he did. Aren't you?"

Tuunbaq replied by letting his tongue loll out of his mouth and leaning up into Harry's hand. He did not appear at all apologetic, but that was okay. This second meeting was already going better than the first.

**Author's Note:**

> On the one hand, I am a shipping fiend and think Goodsir x Silna is adorable. On the other, I appreciate how they're such cute, good friends and respect that it wasn't necessarily taken in a romantic direction in-show. You can take this fic however you like, I just needed to write something cute and painless.
> 
> *pets doggy!Tuunbaaq*


End file.
